Reversal of Misfortune
by Traitor of All Traitors
Summary: After Third Impact, Yui is visited by an angel from Heaven that no longer exists, shown the harsh result of the future she had sought out through Shinji, and given a choice to undo this and everything before it ever happened. If you could change the future, would you?
1. Reversal of Misfortune

Creation began on 07-11-15

Creation ended on 07-13-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Reversal of Misfortune

A/N: The power to obtain forgiveness through redemption isn't for everyone.

"Yui… Yui…" A voice uttered in the vast darkness. "Yui…wake up."

A pair of eyes opened and revealed a woman that appeared to be in her late-twenties, dressed in a pink blouse and dark skirt with a white lab coat.

"Huh? Wha… Who' there?" She asked.

Another woman, dressed in robes of green and red silk, an armored bodice and possessing large wings like that of an actual angel from religious myths stood in front of Yui, with long, jade hair and golden eyes.

"Who…who are you?" Yui questioned.

"I…am the Maiden of Time and Alternatives," said the other woman to her.

"The Maiden of Time and Alternatives?"

"Also, I am the only survivor of Heaven, which is no more because of you and your family, all for the wrong reasons."

"What? The wrong reasons? But what was wrong about what we did?"

"You and your husband exploited your son, manipulated his actions and brought about the end of the world of mortals and destroyed the heavens and its angelic messengers and guardians. You took from me the child I was tasked with watching over when you drove Shinji to cast aside all of existence, thinking that happiness didn't exist in the world. And now look at what's become of the Earth! Oceans as red as blood! Entire land masses deprived of vegetation and wildlife! Skies wrapped in permanent darkness! And the child I was watching over, suddenly ripped away from her father by countless fiends that resemble your façade, only younger and warped. She screamed for her father to protect her from them, as I couldn't, no matter how hard I tried. I failed her because of you and your family. I failed in my duty as a guardian angel to the child I was charged with protecting, and it's your fault."

"It wasn't supposed to be like this."

"But it turned out like this."

"I just wanted to give Shinji a brighter future, free of suffering."

"And yet, you did so at the expense of everything and everyone else in existence, and left a world in which nothing and nobody can survive in."

The angel showed her the planet she had left to rot at an accelerated rate, true to her words, and left with just two people alive. One was her son, and the other was German redhead that had been constantly abusive to him. They were looking out at the dead world they were left in, alone in a Hell on Earth.

"Shinji," Yui called out to her son, but he didn't respond. "Shinji?"

"Don't waste your breath," the angel said. "They can't hear you. Remember, you chose to remain within the abomination you created to exist as an eternal testament of mankind's existence, outlasting everything that exists right now. Right now, that's where you reside, in the abyss of space, probably somewhere between Saturn and Uranus."

"You should've just left us where we were, idiot Shinji," the redhead said to the boy.

"I didn't want this," the boy responded.

In front of them was half of a large, severed head resembling Yui's, but with a twisted smile that was also half of its actual expression.

"Did I do this?" Yui questioned.

"This is what happens when you exploit the will of a child that doesn't have a good conscience or lived a good life…because the people that should have been there for him left him alone, and he couldn't function without the necessary support that a child needs to survive. He can be manipulated into making choices that don't fix a damn thing, just make them worse than before. And even before then, the choices he was left with weren't even the right ones to make. A father that won't even say that he loves his son, not even hold him. A mother that says she's there when she's not, not even able to hold her child and has other intentions. That's not being parents, that's being pathetic, demented madmen that want for themselves and not for their children."

Yui wanted to defend her and Gendo's actions and decisions on what they did, but the mere sight of her emotionally-crippled son and the maimed, lifeless Earth only enforced what the angel had told her.

"I didn't mean for any of this," she told her. "It was just…we were supposed to have Shinji, and he was supposed to be the one to save the world."

"Not everyone wants to save the world. Some of us don't even want to save the world, or a species, a city or a neighborhood, even. Maybe one people that matters to you, but to save the world in a fashion that causes nothing but pain and death is not the way to save anything or anyone. Look at this child! He's no hero, he's not even a god of heroes. He's just a kid that was forced into a war filled with lies and deception. People betrayed him, betrayed his feelings, and consumed all that he could've had in his future, leaving him with nothing more than scraps that wouldn't even get him through a year. What did you have planned for him after your goal had been fulfilled, hmm? Did you even have anything planned for him later? Was he ever meant to finish school, go to his prom, find a girlfriend, have a family of his own or even grow old with his friends? Right now, I can't see him having any of that, not even with this girl that's abusive towards him."

"But…surely, people will return in due time, and society will rebuild…"

"No, Yui, they won't return…and they won't rebuild. They're scattered beyond the capacity to return, lost in the abyss of nothingness and unable to seek the way back to life. These two…are all that's left…and soon, they'll be gone because there's nothing for them to survive in this damaged world. No food or water, no shelter to protect them from the elements, no means to generate electricity or heat. They'll be lifeless within a matter of…"

"Stop!" Yui cried out to her. "Please! Please, just stop!"

The angel ceased her speech and looked at her, seeing the tears escaping from her eyes.

"What did you expect?" She asked Yui.

"I'm sorry. I'm sorry. None of this was supposed to happen! Nobody was supposed to suffer this way! I'd do anything to take this all back if I could!"

"Really?"

"Yes."

"Well, I'm not called the Maiden of Time and Alternatives for nothing."

The angel then reached into her robes and pulled something out. It looked like a jeweled bracelet, adorned with a trio of precious stones (to Yui, they looked like ruby, sapphire, and pearl).

"Time is often believed to be an illusion," the angel expressed, "but that's not entirely true. Time is beyond the full potential of human beings to grasp without the aid of those beyond themselves. It is elastic, malleable, flexible…even reversible. To manipulate time is to create alternatives to an existence where none were available."

She then threw the bracelet at Yui, who caught it.

"This bracelet can control time?" She asked.

"Not control it, per se, but allows one to travel back in time to places or events they had been in…and permit them to deviate from a path initially taken before. Change the history of the past by returning to it and turning it into the present." The angel explained. "But to do so comes with a price to any mortal that decides to take this journey. There's the loss of many memories that were created in the original timeline, and anyone that existed in that time will be returned to the well of existence if the traveler goes back to before they came to be. It would be as though whatever they went through never happened. No being exploited, no being left alone, no being forced to do anything that endangers them or others."

Yui held the bracelet in her right hand and pondered what to do on where in time to go back to. If she chose to go back to before the contact experiment with Unit-01, she might've been able to prevent the psychological damage inflicted upon Shinji, maybe even prevent him from piloting the Eva. But if she went further back in time, to before she ever met Gendo, that would mean that Shinji wouldn't exist, anymore; he'd be unborn and returned to the well of existence. It would also mean that Second Impact wouldn't have occurred yet. And she wouldn't have many of her memories of either her husband or son.

"Every choice made affects the choices by others," the angel told her. "Nobody can reach for the closest piece of treasure in the chest without influencing the course of the farthest ship on a destination. Whichever choice you make, make sure it's the right choice. Not logical, moral or easy. Just right."

Yui looked at Shinji and the redhead, deciding where she needed to go back in time, right then and there.

"Shinji," she uttered, more to herself than to her son, who wouldn't hear her voice, even if she tried to communicate with him. "I hope that we meet again someday, and that things will be different than they are right now. And…I hope that you will find it in your heart to forgive me."

-x-

"…Yui," went Kozo Fuyutsuki to the young woman, who suddenly just collapsed in front of him after he spoke of her thought-provoking paper. "Yui, are you alright?"

Being helped into a chair, Yui felt like something struck her in her brain and she looked around the room. Then she looked down at her right hand, seeing a bracelet she was certain she didn't have before she came to see the professor.

"I…I don't know," she expressed. "Professor, do you ever experience those feelings where you think something big just happened to you or someone you know, only you don't know what it was, exactly?"

"No, never," the elder answered her. "Maybe you should go home and rest."

"Yeah, that's a good idea. I'll see you at another time."

-x-

"…So, you're going on a date with that Gendo Rokubungi guy?" Yui's sister asked her as she prepared to go see her date.

Yui examined herself in the mirror and then looked at her sister.

"I wouldn't call it a date. I just asked him out, nothing more." She explained.

"Still, he's the source of some rather-shady rumors, sis. What do you see in him?"

Before she could answer her sister's question, Yui felt like her brain ran out of thoughts to use and became clouded with a vision that didn't make any sense to her. In it, she saw an older Gendo…and he had been devoured by a giant creature with a horn, like a demon.

"Yui?"

"Hmm?"

"Are you okay?"

"Yeah, I'm fine."

-x-

"…Well, enjoy your date, sweetie," Yui's father told his daughter, but the young woman, after being dropped off by her father at the restaurant that Gendo suggested, started to have second thoughts.

"Maybe now's not the right time for a date," she spoke up.

"What do you mean, Yui?" Her father asked her.

"Ever since I left college that day after my conversation with Professor Fuyutsuki, I've just felt like something has been off with my choices," she explained. "I'll call Gendo and tell him we'll go on a date at another time."

"Are you sure, dear?"

"Yeah, Daddy. We have plenty of time."

And her father drove off with her back home.

-x-

High above the oceans of the undamaged Earth, the Maiden of Time and Alternatives had seen Yui making the choice to not see Gendo that night of their date.

"Don't waste this second chance you've been given, Yui Ikari," she uttered, and took flight back to the restored heavens that awaited her…until she was assigned a new child to watch over.

Fin…for now

A/N: And here's where it'll be stopped for a while, letting you decide what you think will happen from here on out. It's just something that has been attempted in one form or another: What if someone in _Evangelion_ was granted the once-in-a-lifetime chance to go back in time and change their future?


	2. Different Actions

Creation began on 07-16-15

Creation ended on 07-16-15

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Reversal of Misfortune: Different Actions

A/N: As I await a chapter concerning this story, this will be the secondary chapter of this story. Here goes something new for readers.

All she could feel was that something wasn't right about letting her daughter spend time with her ex-husband on this expedition he was planning. Maybe it was more than a feeling, but when he called and suggested that Misato come with him on the expedition, Misao had to decline, even insinuating that he would spend more time working than actually being with their daughter, just like he had when they were married.

 _"…And I just have a feeling that it will be better if she didn't go with you to one of the coldest places on the planet,"_ she recalled herself saying to him over the phone. _"She just met someone that she goes to school with, and he seems like a good guy."_

When her daughter returned her from school, Misao Katsuragi put her phone conversation with her ex-husband aside, glad that she declined his offer to have Misato go with him on his expedition of scientific research.

-x-

It wasn't possible, but it had happened. The specimen that the Katsuragi Expedition discovered…evaporated. It evaporated, disintegrated, or something that meant it wasted away to nothing. All their research, for whatever it was worth to any of the members, was worthless.

Adam, the First Angel and the keeper of this metaphorical "Fruit of Life", a perpetual engine of unlimited, self-sustaining energy…was no more.

Someone had to have done something to cause this outcome, but everyone questioned denied doing anything that would cause Adam to degenerate. The only logical solution had to due to the very nature of the Angel, likely due to its preserved state being exposed to the atmosphere of the South Pole. It couldn't survive outside of its preserved cradle and in a human environment for an extended period. Overexposure to the outside air accelerated its natural decomposition.

"With Adam gone, we'll have to end the expedition," Dr. Katsuragi sighed in defeat to the other scientists involved. "Pack it all up."

To be continued…

A/N: Another shorty over here!


	3. Promise

Creation began on 07-18-15

Creation ended on 03-04-16

Neon Genesis Evangelion

Reversal of Misfortune: Promise

A/N: Due to the extended patience of yours truly, this chapter, also a shorty, will be meant to fill in some of the use of forgotten memories to reshape the future by not making the same mistakes.

GASP! Yui awoke from the same, horrid nightmare again. It was the same one she had been experiencing recently, filled with the same measure of terror she couldn't understand completely, no matter what she did.

There were these nine, giant harpies without eyes, feasting on a girl with red hair, a little boy driven to the edge of insanity by abandonment, a giant of a woman cradling a black sphere whilst a cyclone of red crystals were sucked into her palms, and the center of it all, the very boy that had been left alone by everyone, crouched in a dark corner, whimpering in despair as a giant, purple behemoth hovered under him.

As she got out of bed, she checked the time and date. It was Wednesday, April of Two-Thousand-One, and nearly seven months since Gendo had been murdered in a gang-related incident. She had been to his funeral and everything, and he never knew he was going to be a father prior to his death.

"Shinji…Ikari," she uttered, getting herself a cup of water. "Rei…Ayanami… Asuka…Langley…Soryu… Who are they?"

Consuming the cool drink, she felt better.

-x-

Meanwhile, on the other side of the planet, somewhere in Germany, another woman of intellectual prowess had climbed into bed after another harrowing day of trying to be civil with her husband after their bitter decision to separate for the time being, having found herself unable to deal with his absence from home and waking up to his empty space in bed.

 _He's probably with some other woman that strokes his ego,_ she thought, then wondering what would happen if she had to handle her future as a single mother, since she found out she was recently pregnant. _My mother always said that he seemed to fear the majority of commitment._

This was what the current situation was right now for Kyoko Zeppelin Soryu.

" _I'm a chosen being, a special person,"_ she suddenly heard a female voice that sounded so obnoxious and egotistical that she couldn't even picture the girl that owned that voice. _"I'd rather die than do it with you!"_

Then, after closing her eyes, she saw someone, a girl of thirteen-fourteen years of age, with long, red hair and blue eyes…and a personality unfitting of her, assaulting a boy of similar age, for no apparent reason. She reopened them and expressed some disgust over the mild hallucination of the girl.

 _Yikes,_ she sighed, looking out her window as the sun began to go down. _Who would raise their daughter to be such an…overzealous and prideful firestorm like her?_

Then she started to wonder if having this child was the best thing for her right now. Recently separated from her husband, working such long hours in a research project dedicated to the advancement of alternate energies, and not to mention that she was sent a letter by this group called SEELE, who seemed interested in the work her team was invested in. Also, there was her strange dreams she'd been having for a year now, involving a giant covered in red armor and facing this legion of white harpies to the death, and things didn't look good for the red giant.

-x-

Yui recalled when Fuyutsuki had asked her about her future once before she started dating Gendo, and her intention to have a family of her own was on her mind, and then she found herself in front of him again, wondering what she was going to do in the future.

"…I know that bio-engineering and metaphysical biology are two different subjects and everything," he said to her a few days later, having invited her out to lunch and to discuss her plans, "but you've been very distant lately, and I'm worried about your wellbeing, Ms. Ikari."

"It's okay," she told him, taking a sip of her orange juice. "I've spoken with my Father, and he says he's going to help me out with the baby until I can balance out my future without Gendo. I've also taken up a new subject: Nanomedicine."

"Nanomedicine? I thought that was still in the early stages of development."

"It is, but I believe I can contribute to the world of medical treatment."

"But why? Out of curiosity, I mean."

Yui set down her orange juice and thought of the proper reason to go down this road.

"I guess…after losing Gendo…I just want to ensure that my child won't have to suffer in the years to come," she explained to him. "Is that wrong?"

"No, of course not," he agreed with her.

-x-

"…This new, geothermal reactor prototype is turning out better than anticipated, Soryu," a man told Kyoko a few weeks later.

"It's only until we get the prototype of the plasma reactor completed," she explained to him.

"Still, so long as it's functional, this whole building should be independent of the power grid for quite a while."

"At least a year or so. This should allow us to accelerate the development by cutting three years off the program."

"Say, what did you say to that guy that represented that SEELE bunch?"

"They wanted me to join them in a project based on cellular regeneration, but I turned them down. I'm more interested in this project to make nuclear energy obsolete."

-x-

Some people just assumed that she was suffering from a mild case of postpartum depression, but that wasn't true. The new mother that was Yui Ikari was just thinking heavily on her son's future as she looked at him through the safety glass of the maternity ward.

She had a nightmare shortly an hour after her son was born last night, and it made her more cautious about her son's life. It was the same dream, which included the same, horned giant, a pyramid made of glass and steel, a moon-sized, black sphere that resembled the moon itself in a way, and the legion of white harpies. And in the center of the mayhem that was occurring in the dream was that same boy she was left to conclude was her son, driven to the brink of insanity due to being left alone.

Placing her left hand on the window, Yui swore on Gendo's grave and to herself that she would do right by their son. Whatever that nightmare was about, she took it as a warning of things to come in the future.

 _I promise you, Shinji,_ she thought to herself, _I won't leave you alone._

-x-

"Aargh!" Kyoko groaned as she bore down again.

"It's a girl," the doctor announced, holding up the newborn.

It was that announcement that made Kyoko worry about the future. It was only the previous night before her water broke that she had another nightmare. She had seen that same girl with the red hair, the same ego, shoving others aside and being left alone in an empty life. She didn't want that for her child.

It was three hours later that Kyoko was recovering from the birth of her daughter, who was laying in a bassinet over by the wall.

"…Keep it brief," she heard a female voice speak out to someone outside the room. "This is most irregular."

"Thank you," she heard a responding male voice.

A scuffling of footsteps came into the room and Kyoko saw her husband enter. He seemed quiet and cautious.

"Hey," he greeted her. "How have you been?"

"I've been alright," she answered him. "You?"

"I've been managing."

He then looked over at the bassinet and pointed to the child sleeping in it.

"Is that her?" He asked her.

"Yeah," she responded. "That's Asuka. That's your daughter."

A small smile formed on his face, and he returned to her gaze.

"I came to apologize to you for what happened between us," he revealed his reason for coming to see her.

"It's okay. It's in the past."

"But…I don't want for our relationship to be past tense, Kyoko. I don't expect you to right away, but I will ask that you give me a chance to make it all up to you. I want you in my life again. You and Asuka…if you'll have me again."

-x-

In the hidden chamber, miles underneath the land that was Hakone, the decomposing body of a giant, humanoid being had fallen off a large, red, metallic crucifix and into a large pool of its own fluids, sinking to the bottom.

In front of the fallen giant, several scientists were left to ponder what to do with the remaining samples they had harvested from the giant prior to its decomposing status, as they weren't enough to last for over ten years. They may have been good for two years, but not for the research they were aiming for later on.

"The Committee will not be pleased to know that the other giant has degenerated beyond our capacity to maintain," a female scientist expressed.

"They weren't happy to know that the first one rotted away," responded a male scientist to her. "Not even the research eased their anger."

"So, what now?" Another male scientist questioned.

"We do what we can with what we have to work with."

-x-

 _Years later_

"Shinji," called Yui from the kitchen as she was preparing dinner, "please, come down."

An eleven-year-old Shinji came running into the kitchen, doing something on his iPad that he received on his birthday this year.

"Yes?" He asked her, sitting at the table and setting the tablet down.

"I got a call for your principal today, and he says you were trying to break up a fight again. Is this true?"

"Yes, it is. Toji Suzuhara was trying to shake down Togusa Aoi for his lunch money again, and I tried to stop him before he injured Togusa."

"Have you ever tried not trying to fight someone that spends most of their time at the gym?"

"Mother, he's the type of person that answers situations with his fists, not his brains. Even Kensuke thinks he's a brawler."

As she placed his plate of food in front of him, Yui sat on the opposite side of the table and uttered, "One of these days, Shinji, you're going to have to find an alternative way to deal with bullies without having to fight against them."

-x-

"…But why Japan, Mother?" An eleven-year-old Asuka asked Kyoko, being informed that her mother would be on a flight to Japan to assist in the project to oversee the construction and completion of the alternative energy reactor that would be meant for Tokyo. "They use nuclear power plants for their energy needs."

"That's why I'm going there, sweetie," Kyoko told her. "Research on clean energy has progressed considerably in the last few years. Germany, Europe, France and parts of the U.S. have converted to the use of plasma energy, adding to the use of hydroelectric, geothermal and solar energy sources. If this goes on, nuclear energy will become obsolete. We won't have to rely heavily on a dangerous power that is poisonous."

"You left out the reduction in fossil fuels, dear," Kyoko's husband expressed from within the bathroom as he shaved away his beard and mustache. "The research into plasma-powered vehicles is beginning to bear fruit, too."

Asuka, however, was just throwing a fit because she didn't want her mother to go across the world just to oversee an alternate energy project. She was still at the age where she clung to her mother and could rarely get through the week with just her father around. And the fact that her parents were scientists that specialized in alternate energy and cybernetics was meaningless to her at the time of her coming of age.

"I shouldn't be gone too long," Kyoko told her. "A month at the most. Just thirty days, and then I'll be back. You'll see."

"You promise?" Asuka questioned.

"I promise, Asuka."

To be continued…

A/N: I thought about cutting the part where Lilith decomposes and ending this chapter here, but then I decided that it was better to leave it off at where a promise is made and needs to be kept.


End file.
